Thank you for that cool, careful analysis. It is not just ‘completely preventable’ - it is completely deliberate. One of too many cases of where Israeli spokespeople are being disingenuous or just downright dishonest. By its appallingly excessive actions Israel has lost the support of many of moderate opinions, who in the past would have been instinctively supportive, especially just after October 7th. By dismissing all criticisms of their actions as just ‘anti-Semitism’ or even pro-terrorism, they undermine actions to tackle the cancer of real anti-Semitism. They have also drawn attention to a wider public, to what has been happening to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for decades. Which an Israeli general, as reported in Haaretz, described as pogroms.
Israel may win the short term battle with Hamas but it will be an utterly pyrrhic victory, and they will have lost the war of global public opinion. That cannot be in the best interests either of Israel or of the wider Jewish community.
David Miliband of the IRC, interviewed on BBC World at One today, confirming the points of your article. And as politely as he could put it, the dishonesty of Israeli spokespersons.
18 years ago I was at an Oxfam conference where a Palestinian engineer from the West Bank was talking about the everyday abuse experienced at the hands of Israeli forces. Forcing people to strip was standard practice - deliberate humiliation. In one case before he could climb a telegraph pole to fix a fault... With him was the Israeli who headed up the office they had opened in Jerusalem. They opened it as they had so many from Israeli forces coming to them secretively to talk about the activities of their colleagues that they were ashamed of. There are still some brave and principled Israelis and local NGOs who know what has been happening for years and have been doing their best, whilst they are persecuted themselves by the government and most of the media.
Given the brutality of the October 7 attacks and the widespread support for those attacks among the people of Gaza, might not Israel make a plausible argument that it _must_ ethnically cleanse Gaza to assure its own survival in the longer term?
If the current war does end up backfiring for Israel, it it more likely because outside public opinion won't buy this Israeli argument, or is more likely because they accept this argument but draw an opposing conclusion from it: ie that they'll conclude "a state that must commit genocide to survive is a state that has no business existing at all" and become full-blown river-to-sea anti-Zionists?
Thank you for that cool, careful analysis. It is not just ‘completely preventable’ - it is completely deliberate. One of too many cases of where Israeli spokespeople are being disingenuous or just downright dishonest. By its appallingly excessive actions Israel has lost the support of many of moderate opinions, who in the past would have been instinctively supportive, especially just after October 7th. By dismissing all criticisms of their actions as just ‘anti-Semitism’ or even pro-terrorism, they undermine actions to tackle the cancer of real anti-Semitism. They have also drawn attention to a wider public, to what has been happening to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for decades. Which an Israeli general, as reported in Haaretz, described as pogroms.
Israel may win the short term battle with Hamas but it will be an utterly pyrrhic victory, and they will have lost the war of global public opinion. That cannot be in the best interests either of Israel or of the wider Jewish community.
David Miliband of the IRC, interviewed on BBC World at One today, confirming the points of your article. And as politely as he could put it, the dishonesty of Israeli spokespersons.
Oxfam on the case too. They know as they have been there for years.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/mar/18/famine-gaza-imminent-hunger-aid-group-coalition-oxfam-israeli-authorities?utm_term=65fb129755f3424dc1e3c05469bc0a8f&utm_campaign=GlobalDispatch&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=globaldispatch_email
18 years ago I was at an Oxfam conference where a Palestinian engineer from the West Bank was talking about the everyday abuse experienced at the hands of Israeli forces. Forcing people to strip was standard practice - deliberate humiliation. In one case before he could climb a telegraph pole to fix a fault... With him was the Israeli who headed up the office they had opened in Jerusalem. They opened it as they had so many from Israeli forces coming to them secretively to talk about the activities of their colleagues that they were ashamed of. There are still some brave and principled Israelis and local NGOs who know what has been happening for years and have been doing their best, whilst they are persecuted themselves by the government and most of the media.
Given the brutality of the October 7 attacks and the widespread support for those attacks among the people of Gaza, might not Israel make a plausible argument that it _must_ ethnically cleanse Gaza to assure its own survival in the longer term?
If the current war does end up backfiring for Israel, it it more likely because outside public opinion won't buy this Israeli argument, or is more likely because they accept this argument but draw an opposing conclusion from it: ie that they'll conclude "a state that must commit genocide to survive is a state that has no business existing at all" and become full-blown river-to-sea anti-Zionists?